Using eBay to Study Racism

By Christopher Shea

In a controlled experiment, baseball cards held by black hands sold on eBay for 20% less than baseball cards held by white hands—demonstrating, the study’s authors said, the persistence of a subtle kind of racism.

The researchers first purchased cards for modest amounts on eBay (roughly $3 to $8), then resold them, varying the color of the hand that held the card up to the camera. The low price minimized the chance buyers would be (legitimately) worried about fraud. The sellers had neutral seller i.d.’s consisting of initials and digits, and their eBay history either showed no past auctions or a small number that turned out well.

The average difference between the two groups of cards was about 90 cents, or 20%. The negative effect increased when a black player appeared on a card held by a black hand, and when the buyer came from a “whiter” zip code.

More-experienced white buyers appeared to discriminate to a lesser degree than their less-experienced peers, but the evidence was less than conclusive.

The result, the researchers said, was unlikely to be rooted in racial animus, but rather had to do with “implicit” racism, or the possibly-unconscious association of African Americans with undesirable traits. EBay was a fruitful place to study the effects of this kind of racism on economic transactions, they said, because the situation was so tightly controllable: Just about the only variable was that glimpse of a bit of white or black skin.